Korouri
New Member
Hello, so I’m a new at having a chameleon, although I do have experience with reptiles as I love them and I currently have a bearded dragon and a yellow-belly slider turtle. So this would be my first ‘advanced’ level reptile, since beardies are super easy and turtles are really only intermediate because of how expensive a proper set up is.
I refuse to buy from pet stores after my last bearded dragon as my ethics and morals regarding that have changed. He was also a younger adult though, not a tiny baby. My turtle was a gift from a science teacher (I got her at the size of a half dollar, so precious), who let us look at or carefully pick up the baby turtles. I made the mistake of doing so and my heart melted and I wanted one so she gave me one. She had gotten four baby turtles from a friend who… bought a bunch of babies on vacation in Florida (I assume from some street turtle vendor, ugh) that suddenly realized that buying four baby turtles (animals that individually when full grown need 100+ gallon tanks and whatnot) was pretty dumb. But even my science teacher wasn’t keeping them right. Four baby turtles in a ten gallon tank with 2 inches of water and some gravel sloped to the side. I sadly doubt the other babies made it.
But anyway, I’ve always been interested in a chameleon, they’re just so neat. I’d especially love a male Jackson because I love the horns. But to get one I was going to wait for someone else in my area to give one up for adoption. Which happened last week. Someone had bought a female veiled chameleon from a pet store, then over time just kind of realized it wasn’t right for them. Plus they couldn’t afford to feed her properly. Which I could tell as she is just a bit on the thin side (not like, emaciated stick thin, but her ribs are visible while she moves around). So I did my research, set up a spare repti-breeze as appropriately as I could for the moment, and went to go get her.
I’m happy to have gotten her too because had she stayed with them much longer she could’ve died due to egg-binding when she reached the age (they had no clue that was a problem), or had crippling issues with MBD cause there was no UVB bulb. So I feel good having gotten her out of that situation. I assume they got her at Petco/Petsmart which usually seems to sell them at the 2/3 month old mark for babies, and had her since May, so by now she’s maybe 5-6 months old. She’s not showing the mature colors the female veileds show yet though so she’s probably at the younger end.
I’ve named her Dahlia, she didn't even have a name before then.
So I’m aware of what I need to do and add in to her enclosure that I don’t have just yet, (Getting her a MistKing next week, and all my reptiles need their Uvb lights replaced in general anyway so I’ll be doing that too) and I just regularly spray her enclosure and whatnot for now and she has a dripper. While she was super nervous the first two days in my presence, she still ate from day one and now just a week later super tolerant of me fidgeting with things in her cage here and there, which is a relief, since everything isn’t totally perfect yet. Actually she’s even gotten right on it even with ‘hand’-feeding, she takes stuff from a short pair of tweezers I hold bugs out to her with no problem. She even stopped turning her little angry pattern around me after day three.
So I’ve also been seeing about if she’d be interested coming out to be handled or anything (I’m aware with chameleons patience is a virtue and you have to do everything on their terms) and getting her used to my hands as much I can. Haven't actually handled her yet, but we'll see!
She’s doing great so far, and oh is she just precious. When I open her cage she practically darts along all her little vines and whatnot to come to a branch closest to me for food. Such a smart little thing. And here I was worried given she’d been mishandled in the past (they would grab her from above and pull her off the branch) and being skittish around her old owners, that she’d probably end up being all anti-social and grumpy lol. Clearly the change of scenery has done her good.
Tldr;
Sorry for the long post as I unintentionally write too much too often, but long story short I’m very excited about my new family member and I’m thrilled this is such a nice forum full of so many knowledgeable people. I've been stalking it for a while now anyway but decided I'd finally say hi. Also I'll never make a post this long againimsosorry.
Oh, and here, have a picture of her.
I refuse to buy from pet stores after my last bearded dragon as my ethics and morals regarding that have changed. He was also a younger adult though, not a tiny baby. My turtle was a gift from a science teacher (I got her at the size of a half dollar, so precious), who let us look at or carefully pick up the baby turtles. I made the mistake of doing so and my heart melted and I wanted one so she gave me one. She had gotten four baby turtles from a friend who… bought a bunch of babies on vacation in Florida (I assume from some street turtle vendor, ugh) that suddenly realized that buying four baby turtles (animals that individually when full grown need 100+ gallon tanks and whatnot) was pretty dumb. But even my science teacher wasn’t keeping them right. Four baby turtles in a ten gallon tank with 2 inches of water and some gravel sloped to the side. I sadly doubt the other babies made it.
But anyway, I’ve always been interested in a chameleon, they’re just so neat. I’d especially love a male Jackson because I love the horns. But to get one I was going to wait for someone else in my area to give one up for adoption. Which happened last week. Someone had bought a female veiled chameleon from a pet store, then over time just kind of realized it wasn’t right for them. Plus they couldn’t afford to feed her properly. Which I could tell as she is just a bit on the thin side (not like, emaciated stick thin, but her ribs are visible while she moves around). So I did my research, set up a spare repti-breeze as appropriately as I could for the moment, and went to go get her.
I’m happy to have gotten her too because had she stayed with them much longer she could’ve died due to egg-binding when she reached the age (they had no clue that was a problem), or had crippling issues with MBD cause there was no UVB bulb. So I feel good having gotten her out of that situation. I assume they got her at Petco/Petsmart which usually seems to sell them at the 2/3 month old mark for babies, and had her since May, so by now she’s maybe 5-6 months old. She’s not showing the mature colors the female veileds show yet though so she’s probably at the younger end.
I’ve named her Dahlia, she didn't even have a name before then.
So I’m aware of what I need to do and add in to her enclosure that I don’t have just yet, (Getting her a MistKing next week, and all my reptiles need their Uvb lights replaced in general anyway so I’ll be doing that too) and I just regularly spray her enclosure and whatnot for now and she has a dripper. While she was super nervous the first two days in my presence, she still ate from day one and now just a week later super tolerant of me fidgeting with things in her cage here and there, which is a relief, since everything isn’t totally perfect yet. Actually she’s even gotten right on it even with ‘hand’-feeding, she takes stuff from a short pair of tweezers I hold bugs out to her with no problem. She even stopped turning her little angry pattern around me after day three.
So I’ve also been seeing about if she’d be interested coming out to be handled or anything (I’m aware with chameleons patience is a virtue and you have to do everything on their terms) and getting her used to my hands as much I can. Haven't actually handled her yet, but we'll see!She’s doing great so far, and oh is she just precious. When I open her cage she practically darts along all her little vines and whatnot to come to a branch closest to me for food. Such a smart little thing. And here I was worried given she’d been mishandled in the past (they would grab her from above and pull her off the branch) and being skittish around her old owners, that she’d probably end up being all anti-social and grumpy lol. Clearly the change of scenery has done her good.
Tldr;
Sorry for the long post as I unintentionally write too much too often, but long story short I’m very excited about my new family member and I’m thrilled this is such a nice forum full of so many knowledgeable people. I've been stalking it for a while now anyway but decided I'd finally say hi. Also I'll never make a post this long againimsosorry.
Oh, and here, have a picture of her.
